Hi Vanozza,
I answer you from a albergue, in Frómista, so, not in your way. There are quite a few albergues open. The main reason they are closed is not economic bankruptcy, it is fear. Although the fear is unfounded, on the French Way there has only been one case of Covid for a year, there were several patients due to a pilgrim, no one died, of course. I have had it and it was like a very bad flu, the same happened with my wife and our two children, the albergue was closed and surely our son passed it to us through school.
Regarding reservations, we have stopped working with Booking.com, on the one hand due to the commissions that must be paid, close to 20%, on the other hand because most of those who booked were Spanish or foreigners who speak Spanish, and their laziness finally costs us money (they admit that they do it out of laziness, really !!!), and another important reason is that for some time, applications such as Gronze and Buen Camino show a reservation button that does not link to We but with Booking, with which the pilgrims without waiting enter the reservation system of that company and we cannot ask the apps to remove that button from the application, the only solution is to escape from Booking. In addition, we each speak five languages or more, it is very easy to speak by phone with our hostel, and in many others they speak only English, which is enough.
There is a lovely group of pilgrims who use google translate and send emails, because they don't want us to lose commission, so they tell us.
Therefore, try to contact them directly, it is easy, and they will appreciate it very much. Booking is stronger and more authoritative with us, and we are weaker each day.
Prices have risen in some albergues, not all. Many of us do not want to further harm the
Camino de Santiago and its pilgrims who are not so economically strong today. To revive the Camino, it is necessary to make it easier for money to enter and move, and raising prices is not the best solution, it is almost suicidal. It is necessary just to have a little economics knowledge to understand this, or to have a little common sense.
Right now we are working, by legal mandate, not medical mandate, at 75%.
Also regarding prices, I recommend that you control the prices of the hostels, it can happen very easily that they maintain the prices of before the covid on the internet, and that they are apparently cheaper than another hostel that has not raised the price. We charge € 11, but some other not far from here is advertised for € 10 (price of two years ago) but the real price is € 14.
It is just a real example.